The following discussion is not an admission that anything discussed below is citable as prior art or common general knowledge.
Membrane systems are used to produce purified water, also referred to as permeate. An associated waste, also referred to as retentate, concentrate or brine is also produced. Some membrane systems include a source of pressurized feed water, semi-permeable membranes and a collection system. Large scale membrane systems may house multiple pressure chambers, each chamber housing one or more membrane elements, such as spiral wound reverse osmosis membrane elements. Large scale collection systems include a permeate collection manifold and a retentate collection manifold. These large scale collection systems are comprised of various parts such as pipes, tubes, fittings, valves, and the like, of various dimensions.
Each large membrane system can use a different number of pressure chambers. Furthermore, the pressure chambers can be of different dimensions and arranged in various orientations. Therefore, each large scale collection system is designed and constructed on a case-by-case basis to meet the requirements of each large scale membrane system. The case-by-case construction of the collection system is highly work and time intensive and requires a large number of parts, of varying dimensions, to meet the design requirements.